#I'm using Donna as a placeholder for now.

[aforgotto]

what if girl

[kookicat]

A Void of Stars

The edge of the universe is a lonely place, one where the rules he lives by just... Stop working, break, no longer apply. It makes him feel adrit at a time he'd very much like to feel anchored, because nothing makes sense. Like his old-new face, dragged up from rest for reasons he can't figure out. Like Donna, who keeps breaking every rule he applies to her. Like the Tardis, beautiful and new but sterile in a way she has never been. Like she's waiting, holding her breath, until a new face appears on the tattered, worn out soul that keeps moving forwards because that's all they know, so she can change again into something proper, take her true form rather than the placeholder she's using for now. 

He wanders through the ship, aimlessly, trailing a finger here, lifting a trinket there, turning it in his hands, but he can't settle, even after drinking the tea Donna had sworn would set him right. The dark blue cup is still in his hand, half drunk, sticky round the rim from the sugar Donna had spooned into the brew. He sets it down, well away from anything important and keeps wandering, drawn towards the door like he's in a stifling house and he's desperate for a breath of fresh air. 

It swings open under his trembling fingers and he leans forward, pressing against the forcefield until he can feel the chill of space on his skin. The urge to step outside hits him and he holds his breath until it passes, knowing it'll come back, especially now he's stirred up things he'd much rather have remained undisturbed. 

How can I glimpse the heavens, when I'm too broken to fly? The scrap of poetry floats through his mind, picked up from anywhere, oddly fitting as he gazes out into nothing. 

Oh God, he thinks, and a tiny bit of him is amused by that, that he's spent so much time around humans he's picked up one of their favourite phrases, but the bigger, deeper part of him - it hurts, like an old wound, poked and prodded and bled anew for no benefit. The urge to talk - confess - is still there, burning through him like poison and just as destructive, because for one bright, shining moment he'd thought he had someone who could understand. Who could share the shame and the horror and the pain of what he'd done. Who could understand why, why he'd had no choice and no other path, so many times. 

To have that door opened just enough for him to peek through before being so cruelly ripped away - it's another wound, one that's still bleeding and one he has no idea how to staunch. Even if he can, because the words - my confession - are bubbling on his tougne and he feels like he might just go mad if he can't let them out somehow. 

The tears are a surprise, because a man like him who has destroyed so much shouldn't be able to shed them any more. Once they start, he can't get them to stop, presses his forehead hard against the wooden door, knees crumpling under him until he's slumped on the floor, face inches from the darkness that holds nothing. 

He doesn't know how long he stays like that, tears salty on his lips like blood, just knows that the hole inside of him, the one that rips open a little bit more every time he fails, is getting deeper, growing so much he thinks it might consume him. 

“Doctor!” Real, warm arms wrap around him, drag him out of the ball he'd curled into. 

He hangs onto Donna, nails bending as he clings to her sleeve. There's nothing between the silence and the screaming, so he bites his lip, holds all the words he wants to say inside where they can only hurt him. 

“You're freezing,” she says, holding him tighter. “Come on.” She stands and takes him with her, muttering all the time about lanky streaks, but her voice is a balm he didn't know he needed. 

They hobble into the kitchen - it's warm, and he realises just how cold he actually is, and she stops, deposits him neatly on a chair and sits down opposite him, fingers splayed on the neat little tiled table Rose had picked up from a flea market on a planet he's done his best to forget, because thinking of her is just another knife in his back. 

“Talk to me,” Donna says, voice choked.

He glances up, sees her eyes are wet too, and digs his heel into his shin, as hard as he can, because he doesn't know how many people he's going to hurt before he gives up using them. He shakes his head, and she reaches across the table, sleeve brushing over yellow flowers glazed into the tiles, grabbing his hand and squeezing. 

“Talk to me,” she says again, tightening her fingers, and breaks the dam holding everything back. 

“Wait,” he says, voice hoarse already, and crosses to the control panel on the wall, hitting one button, because the only way he can get the words out is if she can't understand what he's saying. 

There's tea in the big striped pot still and she pours them each another cup, wrapping her hands around hers like it's a shield and she's clinging to any cover she can find. 

He takes a deep breath and talks, for hours-minutes-seconds, using words she has no hope of understanding. Switches languages when the words won't come, ignores the constant salty stream down his face until he falters, running out of words for once, because everything that's being boiling inside of him is finally out. 

He expects to feel better, but he doesn't, just tired and cold and sad, because Donna is looking at him like he might shatter at any second. He digs his heel into his shin again, lets the physical pain distract him from the anguish in her eyes. 

“I wish I could remember,” she says, voice heavy with everything she can't express. 

“No you don't,” he says, wanting to shout, but the word come out soft and flat and exhausted. He's cold like he rarely is - running hot is his nature, and he shivers, hands clenching around the cup. 

“Yes, I do.” She stands and takes the raggy patchwork quilt from the back of her chair, wraps it around his shoulders and tugs him to his feet again. “Yes, I do, because even a brain as big as yours shouldn't carry all this alone.”

“You didn't understand,” he says and stumbles to a halt. “You can't have!” Horror tickles through him, that he'd filled her mind with the nightmares that swarm through his. He braces one hand on the wall, because his legs are shaking just holding him up. 

“The words? No! Gobbledygook to me!” She reaches for him, eyes so soft and sorrow filled that he can't bear it, has to look away. “I saw your face, Doctor. I don't need words, not when everything you were remembering went across your face!”

“Donna,” he starts. “I'm sorry-” 

He's not sure where that sentence was going because she shakes him, hard enough to rattle his teeth together. Hard enough that he stumbles, the quilt falling to the floor. 

“Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me!” she snaps, hands still fisted in his shirt. “Everything I have now - everything - is because of you. So don't you dare apologise because the things you had to do haunt you!”

“I didn't have to do them,” he says, and thinks about the bad choices and the good choices and the impossible choices. The ones he made because he was the only one who could. The ones he made to save as many people as he could and the ones he made because there was nothing else he could have done. “I didn't have to. I could have just kept running,” he finishes, softly, and clears his throat, wishing the headache throbbing between his temples would go away. 

“Then maybe it's time to stop. Maybe that's why you're back.” She turns and nudges open the bathroom door, tugging him along after her. “Stay with me, when I go home. Live a human life for a while.” Let yourself grieve, she thinks, but keeps those words inside. “Stop running.”

“I can't,” he says, even though the idea makes his chest ache for a whole new reason. To be part of a family again, to have people around him, friends, noise and bustle and love in his life rather than the newly sterile silence of the Tardis. I can't, he means to say, again, but thw words that leave his mouth are “I don't want to be alone.”

“Then don't,” she says, and starts the bath running. “God knows it's a big enough house, and Grandad will be delighted to see you.” She turns, meeting his eyes for the first time since they left the table. “Doctor, please. Stay with us for a while.” 

There's a double meaning to her words he almost doesn't catch, thinks about how she found him, staring out into the nothing and the penny drops. 

He blinks suddenly stinging eyes, presses his lips together, because want and need and responsibility are all fighting inside of him and he's not sure what's going to win. “Okay,” he says, finally, quietly. “Okay, I'll stay.”

“Then get in the bath, spaceman, and let's go home.” She picks up a pale green towel, and presses it to his chest, pulling him into a quick hug. “Let's go home,” she says, again and leaves him to his bath. 

He strips and settles into the hot water, closing his eyes, and finds the ache inside of him has finally started to fade.

Thank you for reading this! If you enjoyed it, please can you reblog? I do *adore* likes but they don't share the fic sadly! ❤️